The plants offer since time immemorial products with beneficial properties useful in health, food, construction and decoration among others. In the Andean region among ornamental plants, a species known as “false incense” was selected due to its aroma, which was striking to start a chemical study and its ethnobotanical applications; For this purpose it was necessary to carry out a literature review on the Plectranthus genus which includes taxonomic classification, geographical distribution, morphology and its chemical composition. According to this, genus under study have diterpenic compounds such as abietane, pimaranes and clerodanes. In addition, for many species, the results show the presence of essential oils (EOs), for which the preliminary chemical characterization of the essential oil of the introduced species determined as Plectranthus madagascariensis Pers (Benth), belonging to the Lamiaceae family, was determined. The extraction of the EO was made by steam distillation. A sample was analysed by Gas Chromatography with mass detector (GC-MS). 78 constituents were detected in this study: monoterpenic hydrocarbons (0.4%), oxygenated monoterpenes (0.9%), sesquiterpenic hydrocarbons (78.5%), oxygenated sesqui-terpenes (13.8%) diterpenic hydrocarbons (0,5%) and unidentified compounds (6%). The major constituents were ß-gurjunene (24%), α-santalene (11%), valencene (7.7%) and Spatulenol (4%). This is the first EO study of P. madagascariensis conducted in Colombia whose results offer the possibility of developing phytotherapeutic products, for aromatherapy and cosmetology.